Indeed, we can almost regard the allegedly Catholic (though fanatically pro-abortion) Gutierrez as a kind perverted “Sign of Contradiction”—whatever he supports will assuredly harm the historic American nation.

But what constitutes treason? It doesn’t just mean allying with foreign powers against America, though Gutierrez has already done that. VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow has written,

The Supreme Court, in Cramer (1945), quoted a definition of treason as “an act which weakens or tends to weaken the power of the [United States] . . .” Treason required an act and conscious intent; but not necessarily war.

And this definition of treason must be read in the context of what the Founders believed they were doing. The preamble to the Constitution begins: “We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. . .” [Italics mine.]

It’s indisputable that Gutierrez has devoted his life dispossessing Americans of their country and that he has no loyalty to the historic American nation. Indeed, he’s already told us that quite explicitly.

We correctly view these actions as a nauseating breach of faith because Treason, at its essence, is the most personal of crimes. In past centuries, Treason was a crime against one person, the sovereign. Even today in the United Kingdom, the still-active Treason Act of 1351 includes committing adultery with the “King’s companion,” the King’s daughter, or the wife of the King’s eldest son as high treason.

In the United States, “We The People” constitute the sovereign power. The Constitution was created in order to benefit “ourselves and our posterity.” At its most basic definition, barring consideration of race, language, and culture, the American government has a duty to safeguard the well-being of American citizens before all other people.

If Treason was once disloyalty to a person, it is now disloyalty to a national community defined—at the very least—by citizenship. What Steve Sailer calls “Citizenism” is what any other generation of American leaders would have called normal government.

But while it’s logical to speak as our Republic as a compact of citizens, it doesn’t really that way in the real world. A nation-state is the political expression of a particular people. The United States only makes sense if it can be seen as the creation of a culture of English settlers, the “Anglo-Protestant” core described by Samuel Huntington. While others can join it and identify with it, that core culture has to be accepted in order for the “American” identity be a meaningful concept.

Needless to say, both the American Right and Left now define the United States as a “Proposition Nation,” united by an American Dream that seems to focus entirely on screwing each other out of money. Of course, a “Proposition Nation” is akin to a unicorn – just because people claim to see it doesn’t mean it’s real. By saying that essentially everyone is an American, it implies that no one is really an American.

In a kind of parody of Carl Schmitt, the Proposition Nation eliminates entirely the “friend/enemy” distinction—and in so doing eliminates the basis of political society. How, after all, does one commit “Treason” against a proposition nation?

The ruling powers of both state and culture move swiftly to attack any expression of organic patriotism by European-Americans, while favoring and subsidizing racial tribalism practiced by other groups.

Indeed, it seems obvious that much of the unhinged rage directed at white Americans who presume ownership of the United States derives from the supposed universalists’ own tribal biases. Through their hate for it, they concede what the American identity really is.

This is why Gutierrez and his ilk aren’t’ really traitors – America was never their country to begin with and they never thought of it as such. It was always simply a resource to be plundered.

But this Occupation, and the resulting American dispossession, can’t take place without collaborators. And those members of the historic American nation who actively join in sustaining it out of are guilty of treason. They are selling out those people to whom they owed loyalty out of greed or sociopathy. The only other excuse they have for their action is stupidity – and unfortunately, a large number of Republicans seem to fall in that category.

When Napoleon occupied Germany, the young officer Carl von Clausewitz actually disobeyed the orders of his occupation government in order to join the Russian Army to fight for Prussian freedom. There is nothing worse than the position of a patriot when the institutions of his own country have turned against him.

If Obama pushes through a lawless Amnesty, that will be our position.

But our country is not the government. Nor is the land, the military, nor even the Constitution, however much we may love those things. Our country is the people—the historic American nation who created it, built it, and despite everything, keep it going.

Treason against America is treason against that people.

For, in the end, no matter what the future holds, America Belongs to Us.

James Kirkpatrick [Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc.